Guitar Hero: World Tour New Impressions Preview

Ten things Guitar Hero: World Tour does that Rock Band 2 doesn't.

No. 6 -- The guitar
The World Tour guitar is very different from Rock Band's guitar and even the earlier Guitar Hero guitars. For starters, there's a touch pad lower down the neck. It duplicates the function -- and the spacing -- of the fret buttons. This makes it easier to rely on muscle memory when doing some down-low fretwork. Contrast this to the solo buttons on the Rock Band guitar, which are much smaller and therefore closer together than the regular fret button -- hello, whole new learning curve! World Tour's new fret gimmickry is more player-friendly.

It also feels great. Because it's a touchpad, you can tap out notes without strumming. But wait, there's more! In parts of some songs, a purple line connects some of the notes, usually when the guitar goes all wah-wah, like during stretches of the Steve Miller Band's "The Joker." The line is ugly, but it reads; sliding your hand along the touch pad moves a highlighted bar along the onscreen fret. If you can trace the purple line with the highlighted bar, you get a wah-wah score bonus. This onscreen feedback makes it much easier to "feel" your way through this by watching the bar move onscreen rather than watching your fingers.

As for the rest of the guitar design, a palm button is right underneath -- you guessed it -- your palm. If you don't want to mess with tilting the guitar to activate star power, just mash this in without having to confuse yourself by tilting the guitar. A protruding Xbox button looks like a dial, but it also serves as the D-pad, making it easier to navigate menus.

SCREENS: Click the image above to check out all Guitar Hero: World Tour screens.

No. 5 -- The bass
Surprise -- even the bass gets a little love! Neversoft experimented with an "open note" in Guitar Hero III
, where you just strum the strum bar without holding down any fret buttons. They didn't end up using it. However, "open notes" are now part of playing the bass. In a way, it's like the kick pedal when you're playing drums. You have to condition yourself to respond a little differently by turning off your fingers on the frets. It's almost a reverse of hammer-ons and pull-offs, where you turn off your fingers on the strum bar. It breaks up bass playing in a minor but noticeable way.

No. 4 -- The vocals
OK, there's not a lot that's new here. However, your pitch is tracked with a dot that moves through a "tube." The tube is continuous, even when there aren't words onscreen, giving you a visual indicator of how to pitch your voice before the actual word you'll sing arrives. It's a bit more intuitive and easy to visualize than a tiny arrow pointing at a fine broken line.

No. 3 -- The music studio
This is just mind-blowing in a couple of ways. Firstly, watching someone use a guitar controller to torturously navigate the detailed interface for the music studio and the music mixer nearly makes my head explode. It's enough to make me beg Neversoft to support a USB mouse. Of course, this thing is too complex and in-depth for most World Tour players, anyway. But there's still potential for just jamming with your buddies and enjoying a little laid-back cacophony.

But mostly, it's going to be amazing to see what people do with this. Because, frankly, it doesn't look like there's much they can't do. This is a full-featured music creator that lets you lay down tracks using preset or customized sounds and by playing the instruments and recording yourself. Then you can fine-tune it all with a more advanced studio interface to create completely original songs that will be playable in the game. The only thing missing will be the lyrics for the vocal track, which can still be set to a specific pitch.

SCREENS: Click the image above to check out all Guitar Hero: World Tour screens.

No. 2 -- GH Tunes
And here's the real hook for the music creator: Activision will host a YouTube-style service called "GH Tunes" where players can upload their creations from the music studio. The idea is that everyone gets five slots, but people whose content is more successful will get additional slots. I don't envy Activision the task of copyright Whac-a-Mole it'll have to play to keep well-known songs off the servers, but I also can't deny that I'm looking forward to seeing whatever "homages" players make available. This might be a legal headache for Activision, but there's no denying that the possibilities for custom content are virtually limitless.

No. 1 -- Song list
Hey, a lot of your bands are double-dipping! There's a surprising amount of crossover in the song lists of Rock Band 2 and World Tour. Both games have the same songs from Blondie, Bon Jovi, Survivor, Foo Fighters, The Guess Who, Jane's Addiction, Jimmy Eat World, Modest Mouse, and Smashing Pumpkins. What gives?

But then there's the exclusive stuff. On this front, it looks like World Tour has the clear advantage when it comes to classic rock (i.e., stuff for old dudes like me): Wings' "Band on the Run," Bob Seger's "Hollywood Nights," Steve Miller Band's "The Joker," The Doors' "Love Me Two Times," Lynyrd Skynard's "Sweet Home Alabama," Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again", and two classics from Jimi Hendrix ("Purple Haze" and "The Wind Cries Mary"). All that and The Eagles' "Hotel California" to boot.

It also has notables like Michael Jackson's "Beat It," Lenny Kravitz's "Are You Gonna Go My Way," The Sex Pistols' "Pretty Vacant", and arguably the definitive Beastie Boys song, "No Sleep 'Till Brooklyn." Song lists are, of course, a matter of taste, but there seem to be fewer "huh?" song choices in World Tour.